Abstract
In the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak (spring 2020), the first division of professional soccer in Spain (LaLiga) was suspended for 12 weeks as part of the lockdown imposed by the Spanish health authorities. Professional soccer players were confined to home for 8 weeks and then a retraining period of 4 weeks was set before the first competitive match. When competition was resumed, professional soccer teams competed in a congested calendar (11 matchdays in 39 days) while some in-game regulations were altered (up to 5 substitutions, refreshment pauses). The current research presents an analysis of running patterns before suspension and after resumption of LaLiga to determine how the lockdown affected players’ physical performance. To aid in this purpose, a pairwise comparison was performed of running patterns of the 2019–2020 vs. 2018–2019 season (i.e., control season). Using a two-way ANOVA (season x matchday), it was found that there was no main effect of the season on total running distance per match (P = 0.288) nor in the distances covered < 14.0 km/h (P = 0.294), at 21.0–23.9 km/h (P = 0.266), and at ≥ 24.0 km/h (P = 0.112). Only the distance at 14.0–20.9 km/h was affected by the season (P = 0.019) with a lower running distance on matchday 34 in the 2019–2020 vs. 2018–2019 season. The number of substitutions (from 2.9 to 4.5 substitutions per game; P < 0.001) and match duration (96 vs. 100 min; P < 0.001) significantly increased after resumption respect to the previous season. These data suggest that high-intensity running performance of professional soccer teams was maintained after the resumption of the competition while the alterations likely aided in the in-game regulations facilitated the maintenance of soccer physical performance.
Highlights
During the spring of 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused the suspension of sports competition worldwide, as their suspension was one of the several actions taken by most countries to reduce the spread of the virus
Soccer Physical Performance After Lockdown In Spain, the first wave of COVID-19 impacted in March 2020 and national health authorities set a severe lockdown that entailed home confinement starting on March 14 (Castañeda-Babarro et al, 2020)
The lockdown was set for a duration of two weeks and professional and elite athletes struggled to maintain their physical condition by training at home as it was believed that sports competitions would be resumed as soon as the lockdown finished (Sarto et al, 2020)
Summary
During the spring of 2020, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused the suspension of sports competition worldwide, as their suspension was one of the several actions taken by most countries to reduce the spread of the virus. The lockdown was set for a duration of two weeks and professional and elite athletes struggled to maintain their physical condition by training at home as it was believed that sports competitions would be resumed as soon as the lockdown finished (Sarto et al, 2020). Despite the effort of the teams’ staff, the inclusion of high-intensity running actions depended on the conditions of home confinement for each player. For this reason, the execution of soccer-specific displacements such as accelerations/decelerations, sprints, and changes of direction were difficult to perform at home for most players (Moreno-Pérez et al, 2020)
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